Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friends. Show all posts
Today I want to talk about long distance friendships. I'm sure bloggers and loads of people really can totally understand having friends who live so far away and know how hard it is and how much you end up missing them and having them around. My experience is my best friend of 13 years and hopefully loads of years more.
My Best Friend
In 2006 my best friend from high school moved to New Zealand, which is the other side of the bloody world by the way. We had only been besties for a year when she moved but I'm glad we became the best of friends when we had. I'd be missing out on so much if we hadn't. I wouldn't have such a caring, understanding and patient friend that I do. We've stayed close and the distance is just a little obstacle.
Communication
Communication is key in any friendship or relationship. When my bestie first moved it was MSN that helped us to keep in contact. I miss MSN haha. We would always send each other presents for Christmas and birthdays. Now it's Facebook Messenger that helps us to communicate. It's not as good but it will do. Even though we may not speak to each other every single day or sometimes it can be quite a while but we have the patience to understand that we do live at the other side of the world, there is the time difference and we have things going on in our lives that we are not always online to talk. This is why I love her to be honest. She understands and doesn't have a bad bone in her body and I always take the time to understand her.
Visiting
As she lives at the other side of the world visiting is extremely difficult. It's a long trip, it's expensive and it's rather brutal from my experience. My bestie has been back a few times as she still has family here and it's still her home in a way and I always look forward to when she does come back. When we are around each other it's as if she never went away and I always enjoy her company whether it's going to do some touristy things or just staying in and binge watching shows. I've also travelled to visit her and my second family. It was a trip that was quite scary especially as it was the first time I've been out of Scotland on my own but it was totally worth it to spend a month with my other family and I would love to do it again if I can save up the money.
Thoughts
I do honestly miss her most of the time and when I'm watching shows like Supernatural, The Flash or Outlander I sometimes think about the times we'd be sitting binge-watching something and just having a good time. It's hard as you want to be there for your friend as much as possible but it's difficult when you can't be. Or when you wish you could talk to them. It's all about having the patience, compassion and being supportive that helps a long distance friendship to keep going. I'm super glad that the distance hasn't made too much of a difference or that it was too much of an obstacle for us. I've had friends who have moved away, not even that far too and the friendship just fizzled so when you have a friendship like this it's definitely a positive thing.
Do you have any long distance friendships? Let me know about your friendships and what you guys do to stop the friendship from burning out?
Thanks for reading! :)
So there is something in my life which I am definitely very good at. It's not something I am quite happy about but I'm good at it anyway. Doesn't mean it's a positive thing. In fact it's probably rather negative. I am very good at pushing people away. Exceptional I must admit.
I am not the most sociable person on the planet but put me in a social setting with a bunch of people and I would do alright and surprise myself that I may actually be having a good time. It's keeping social ties that I find hard. It's staying in a sociable mood that comes with great difficulty. I'm not entirely sure why but there it is.
The time I'm at my best at pushing people away are times when I am in a rut or going through some rough times. I tend to keep myself to myself and don't like burdening people with my problems. Opening up to people is something I'm not fond of doing which for someone who is blogging seems a little strange but the circumstances are a little different. Opening up involves letting yourself be vulnerable to people. I've done it before, it's backfired and people have used information against me or turned it against me which is not a fun feeling. Get burned and you attempt to stay away from the fire a second time.
There are only a small number of people who I feel that I can trust with my openness and vulnerability and that is my best friend and boyfriend. Me and my best friend are a good bit similar when it comes to people that I know she understands the most and is super supportive and my boyfriend is also one of the most supportive people I know that opening up to him is easy and I am glad I do have supportive and loving people in my life. My mum is also a good person to have a good rant to and my dad totally understands too as he's very much the same. Well, I know where I get it from. Not everyone makes it easy though or there's too much energy involved in trying to make other people understand. Therefore I isolate myself to an extent.
Sometimes I just want to light some candles, stick something on that I can binge watch and hide under my covers and stay there until my rut blows over. Sometimes that can take a day, a week or even a month or more. Some people during these times think that I no longer want to be friends or that I am losing interest and even when I try to tell them that I isolate myself sometimes they don't understand. So, I isolate myself from them even more. Pushing them away. I've probably done it quite a few times now. Part of me is sorry, I am human and I may not always deal with things in a way that everyone likes but I'm also not sorry for looking after myself.
We are all human and we all make mistakes but looking after ourselves is not one of them. If people aren't willing to understand your way of looking after yourself and trust that when you feel ok again you'll start doing things with them again then are they really your friend? My way of thinking is when I'm not at my best then I don't want to be around people knowing that I'm not going to be good company and bring the mood down.
Sure, pushing people away is not the best way to handle things, maybe pushing people isn't the best way to explain it. Perhaps it is merely isolating yourself and when you drag yourself back into life people aren't around to give you hug and say "welcome back mate, we missed you!".
Have you ever had a similar issue? How do you cope with it? Let me know. :)
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